Hull City ending their time at Boothferry Park with a 1-0 defeat to Darlington was both a terrible way to go out and the perfect one.

It was a bittersweet day, on and off the pitch, that perfectly captured the atmosphere of a ground that was wonderful and awful in equal measure and played host to some of the best and worst times in the club’s history.

It was “mine” for a decade and a half. My first game, aged six, came after the peak of the Brian Horton era and those 15 years were like a ski-jump.

Steadily downhill year on year until Adam Pearson came along and the club took off.

Despite all that, I was always in awe of the place. The once record-breaking floodlights that you could see from miles around.

EMPTY: A team sheet from the programme of the last game at the ground between Hull City and Darlington on 14th December 2002. (Image: Jack Harland)

The little scoreboard that lit up with glee when we scored.

The roar that emanated from so few people in the Kempton or the South Stand.

And the pitch. It felt like carpet, looked like it had been trimmed by hairdressers and shone like emerald on the first day of any new season.

The Boothferry that I fell in love with was two and half stands, the half often shut, and a supermarket.

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But it wasn’t always that way. The supermarket had originally been a mirror of the big South Stand.

In the early years after its opening in 1946, gates regularly topped 45,000 – particularly during the promotion year of 1949-50.

WHAT A CROWD! The scene outside Boothferry Park on February 26, 1949 when Hull City entertained Manchester United in an FA Cup quarter final. (Image: Hull Daily Mail)

Earlier in 1949, the club record gate of 55,019 was set against Manchester United in the FA Cup. That will stand for another 70 years and more.

You couldn’t stand on the terraces and not hear about the history of the club and the ground.

The FA Cup quarter-final replay against first division Chelsea that season or the game five years later when City almost knocked out Stoke City to make the semi-finals. What you wouldn’t have given to be part of the 40,000+ crowds at those games?

For the next generation, the FA Cup 5th round tie against Liverpool is the one that might come closest.

The ground had been remodelled under Don Robinson’s vision of putting a concert bowl on the North Stand (before playing on the moon) and the capacity was much reduced but a crowd of 20,000 was huge compared to the fortnightly average in the league.

The game featured on Match of the Day and City’s goals from Keith Edwards and Billy Whitehurst were greeted by celebrations we wouldn’t see for another 12 years.

We lost 3-2 having led 2-1 but frightened the life out of possibly the best team in Europe.

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Boothferry was far from perfect. You wouldn’t expect any less from a ground whose neon sign rarely managed to light up its own name.

The incredible rail halt on Kempton Road and the big North Stand were long gone.

The corners of the East Stand were dilapidated.

Corporate facilities, if you’d even call them that, were more like a working man’s club. Those who sat in the “best” stand were showered with flakes of rust if the ball hit the roof. And I don’t think we need to go into the toilets.

SWANNY DIGGING IN: Around sixty people turned up to clear the snow from Hull City's pitch at Boothferry Park before a game against Bristol City in 1991.

It played host to a team in decline and a fanbase similar but always maintained a genuine, ferocious atmosphere.

Being a part of it could be the most fun but genuinely frightening at times. It worked both ways for the players too. Former Tigers’ full-back Simon Trevitt hated playing in front of the Kempton such was the barrage of abuse he received.

It’s a pity we didn’t leave Boothferry on a high.

The game against Scarborough at the end of the “Great Escape” season of 1998-99 which attracted a massive crowd that filled parts of the ground that hadn’t been stood on for years or the play-off semi-final with Leyton Orient in which John Eyre’s winning goal in the sunshine sparked celebrations not felt in decades.

PITCH INVASION: Hull City fans gather on the pitch after the final whistle of the defeat to Darlington. (Image: Susie Bateman)

Instead we went out with a whimper in the early days of Peter Taylor’s successful reign. The walk of legends before the game, complete with fans throwing oranges at Ian McKechnie, failed to light up a damp, cold day and when the visitors – the mighty Darlington – nicked the three points it left an air of disappointment that was somehow fitting.

The post-match pitch invasion was still a mild celebration but I’m not sure how much of that was relief that it was over!

I still miss it regardless. I’m proud of the KCOM Stadium and it was the catalyst for Hull City achieving things I could barely dream of, but I’ll never stop longing for one more game at Boothferry Park.